Any chance of a topic about language and linguistics?

[MardyBra]

Hello lovely MNHQ
We often have lively debates about language change and usage and many of would dearly love a topic where we can mull over these things without posters who not interested in such topics accusing us of being irrelevant or snobbish. Any chance of looking into it?

See this thread for details

Make that "Language" (singular), and it would be great, I think, MmeCinq!

And I do like the word "Ubertopic" - I'm going to add it in my dictionary. I shall even add a few translations of it.

I would be very much in favour of a Languages Übertopic. I don't think it's that easy to separate out issues arising from raising bilingual children and linguistics in general, and if you insisted on some sort of rigid division you would just have confused people accidentally posting in the 'wrong' topic. In that vein, I absolutely second MmeCinq's proposal (or am I thirding it, given that Alex has beaten me to the seconding).

And since we linguistic fans are among ourselves here, we can kick off of a discussion of the word 'Übertopic', and indeed the habit of putting 'Über' before a noun or adjective. For me (as a translator from German) it looks utterly wrong without the Umlaut, but you could plausibly make a case that as it has entered the English language it has effectively become a new linguistic item, detached from its original context. And so many English keyboards won't have an Umlaut key anyway. And the 'ue' sound doesn't really exist in English. At what stage does a 'wrong' loan word start becoming correct?

I am also in favour of the uebertopic or übertopic of language. Be nice to wander around in it.

I am so old that when I started work there were only typewriters. Even in Germany, if there was no umlaut on the typewriter, you just typed the extra e. so it doesnt look odd to me at all. perhaps people are less used to seeing this, now that we all use computers with a full range of symbols (assuming we can find the bastards)?

Ps this is a good place to congratulate MNHQ on that rather subtle joke on the AIBU banner.....Am I Being Unseasonable.... very good

That's interesting Beast, I wonder if it depends where the typewriter was made. In the early 90s I had an aged typewriter that most definitely had separate Umlaut keys. My current German (Mac) keyboard has the ü to the right of the p and the ö and ä to the right of k, so terribly easy to find. French-style accents are also remarkably easy, as well as the little circle above a letter and the circumflex.

DH did a typing course in Germany the late 80s on a manual typewriter - I'll have to ask him if they learned with or without the little buggers.

There was an article in the Grauniad yesterday which mentioned Schöenefeld airport - definitely zuviel des Guten!

Yes, perhaps what I am remembering is Germans using other people's typewriters when away from home- but the extra e was routine, whereas now maybe not so much. Do you think even young Germans use it now? Given they probably never find themselves with no handy umlaut?

Hmm. I see foreign words used in English with creative spellings and pronunciation all the time. I tend to notice the Greek ones most of all (occupational hazard!)

I think that the umlaut (or diaresis, for non-German speakers, or even diaeresis for superpedants) on "uber" is unnecessary in English - it has become an English word in its own right - just as it is not incorrect to write "naive" with no diaresis, or "fiance" with no acute accent over the 'e'.

I have a Greek keyboard. I can get the diaresis easily when it is switched to Greek, because the diaresis is used in Greek normally anyway. But if I want to put it over letters when it's switched to the Latin alphabet, then it's a nuisance. It is possible, but it's a bit of a faff, so I don't bother if I am writing in English, only if I am using a language where it would be definitely incorrect not to use the diaresis.

Sometimes I forget to switch it to the right language anyway, accents or no accents!

Hmmm. I am not sure about fiancé because it would be pronounced very differently, without the accent. I agree the umlaut makes no odds to how most English people say über, though to a German it would.

Marking place to find out if this topic actually happens.

I love the fact that people are already discussing languagey things on this thread.

FWIW, as a non-German speaker (well, a rusty O-level from 30 years ago), I'm quite comfortable with Uber without an umlaut. It feels sufficiently assimilated into English to manage without, but it feels fine with one too. Ueber would confuse a lot of people though, imo.

Well, I was forced to attend by my parents went on a typing course in Germany in the early 80s (mechanical typewriters an'all) and there were Umlaute.
I like the fact that my fancy-pants MacBook has easy access Ü Ä Ö and even ß which has even gone out of fashion in Germany itself.

So, Übertopic for me please

I always think its odd that the plural for umlaut doesn't take an umlaut

Aree we need the umlaut on the topic header if its called the übertopic, otherwise, quelle fail...

I think that a language topic is a great idea, but I think that many of the interesting debates are likely to continue in other topics. I am especially interested in language and feminism, for example, and these discussions arise in FWR as well as in Chat and AIBU from time to time. And I suspect that many of the discussions in which people are outraged by a particular usage will often be in AIBU, as they are now.

DH's ancient typewriter definitely had umlauts. I threw it away last year - it was at least 25 years old.

I would use them but don't have them on this keyboard.

My Swiss laptop has both French and German umlauts, which was handy.

Froeliche Weihnachten Allen.

Any chance of looking at this, now it's the new year MNHQ.

Oh yes, well done for reviving this thread, MardyBra, and happy new year

Pretty please, MNHQ??

Happy new year, linguists!

How about it, MNHQ?

Another vote here!

Yep, I'm in - this has me written all over it (member of Pedants Anonymous)

Bump

I see the lowcarb bootcamp has its own topic (which is great). How about us?

Mr Bump

Gawn, gawn, gawn, MNHQ - you know you want to.

Word Tasting Notes

Officially joined and stopped lurking to add my pretty please